The city councils’ action struck down hopes for a park between two park-poor cities and stirred opponents’ fears developers will turn the property into an urban hotspot and price working-class families and Latinos out of the surrounding neighborhoods.

Garden Grove city leaders are considering merging their fire department with the Orange County Fire Authority, a move aimed at cutting costs as the city faces a growing budget crisis and discusses a possible sales tax increase.

ByTHY VO and SPENCER CUSTODIO |July 3, 2018

The Irvine City Council voted to tell the Orange County Fire Authority it may withdraw from the agency, part of a long-running dispute between Irvine and the Fire Authority over the city’s disproportionately large property tax contributions compared to the services it receives.

Day to day commutes might get a little easier for Garden Grove residents following a decision by city council members to adopt traffic light synchronization projects for Garden Grove Boulevard and Katella Street.

Plans for a 769-room, three hotel resort in Garden Grove will move forward after the City Council approved a development agreement that hands over a 5.18-acre property to the developer for $852,571 in fees. The city also will pay up to $250,000 in improvements to the site and give the developer tax subsidies worth at least $17.6 million.

Regardless of who wins the District 6 seat, either Rickk Montoya or Kim Nguyen will be the city’s first-ever Latino council member. While the two Democrats have similar stances on the issues, the community is divided over their candidacies.

They will go as part of a local business delegation to meet with the leaders of a Shanghai-based multinational construction and real estate firm with plans for more than $850 million in development in Garden Grove.

Irvine resident Jodi Lieberman, a first-year college student at UCLA writes about the difficulties of trying to restore her right to drive and how reaching out to Senator Moorlach's office made the difference in her case.

After having his department largely defunded last year because of an active watchdog approach, it now seems that deceased Orange County Auditor Controller Eric Woolery was transitioning his life to Kansas. Orange County taxpayers had a right to know that Woolery was super-commuting to his local office from out of state and might be transitioning to a new life. Access to an official public calendar would have allowed for that kind of accountability, something that County of Orange officials keep fighting.